The sound of the door slamming behind me echoed in the dimly lit hallway as I walked down the narrow corridor towards my apartment. An officer blocked my path, holding his arm out in front of me as I attempted to walk past.

“Where are you headed?” he demanded.

I tried to remove his arm from my wrist, attempting to walk around him home a few feet away. “Why are you putting your hands on me?” he asked ferociously.

He was a black cop, about 5’7, stocky and in his mid-to-late thirties. I heard my friend Darnell, listening from the hallway, call out, “Hey Pete, stop being difficult!’’

He had left the stairwell moments before me and now stood in front of our apartment. Both the officer and I ignored him.

Like this:

A couple of years ago my mother wanted to enrich my knowledge of Black culture. I learned about matters pertaining to many things, though one topic in particular arose continuously: It was the civil rights movement. I heard about the people being thrown in jail and hosed down. How they couldn’t even go to the same stores or drink out of the same water fountains as white people. Then I saw how people fought for freedom and took us out of those particular situations. So that segregation in the government was officially over. Read more…

There have been numerous reports of actor Chevy Chase using the derogatory ‘N-Word’ on the set of his television show, “Community.”

TMZ reported earlier this week that Chase blurted out the epithet in an awkward rant about the direction his character is taking. Evidently, “Pierce Hawthorne,” the character Chevy portrays on the show, has a slightly racist view of things. I’ve never seen the show, so I can’t say for sure, but according to other news outlets, the character is an eccentric millionaire with some time on his hands.

It’s been previously reported that Chase has complained about the attitude of the character; and that he has, for awhile, been uncomfortable with the character’s behavior and has beefed with the writers of the show. I say kudos to him for that.

In this technologically advanced year of 2012, it is indeed sad that we still have a very long way to go with regard to basic human justice FOR ALL (as our Pledge of Allegiance alludes too). Injustices continue to take place daily in our nation, and for people of color, they are, unfortunately, more frequent and often more blatant.

Brandon Jackson has been caught up in a web of legal incompetence, cover-ups and blithe indifference. A law-abiding young African-American man who had never been in any sort of trouble in his life, he is proof positive that the Land of Oz is not the only place where unbelievable things happen. A New Jersey native, he has experienced the type of nightmare one would think had transpired in the Deep South in the 60’s.

To get to the point of this letter, Brandon Jackson has been incarcerated unjustly, for a 12-year term, after alarmingly lackadaisical legal representation by mainly “go-along to get-along” public defenders and private attorneys in Jackson, New Jersey. A series of other cover-ups regarding his case which, in a nutshell, involves his self-defense in a racial attack upon him in October 2006 (yes, this dragged on for five years), when he was 21 years old, by a group of white individuals who yelled “kill the nigger” and other racial comments, in which no other person was charged. He was convicted, without any evidence, of the aggravated assault of two of his attackers, who testified against him at trial. Although the responding officer classified the incident as a racially-motivated attack/bias crime at trial, which took place during the height of the Zimmerman incident, the judge said such comments were not important in Ocean County, New Jersey, a predominantly white county. So, what do we tell our African-American and Latino sons — that they are an endangered species? Where is the basic American justice for Brandon Jackson and those like him? Read more…

This is what’s troubling about recent reports about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. Let’s just say that Zimmerman is correct in that Trayvon was bashing his head into the ground. According to the 911 call Zimmerman made, he was told to NOT pursue Trayvon, yet he did, so, in theory, if he had listened to the caller, more than likely, no incident happens that night. BUT, he did pursue Trayvon. Why isn’t Trayvon afforded the same right, according to the ‘stand your ground’ law that Zimmerman chooses to use as his defense? Even IF Trayvon was whipping his ass, doesn’t Trayvon have the right to stand his ground? Zimmerman is following him, which immediately puts Trayvon in a defensive stance, common sense tells you that. But let me state that I do NOT believe Zimmerman’s version of what transpired, BUT, even IF it happened that way, he is STILL the aggressor in this situation. Of course, we will NEVER know…. Read more…

Politicians of African descent in America, in concert with the non-concern of their voting constituency have reinvented the Negro, or better yet made the Negro retro chic. What do I mean by this? Well from an etymological perspective, the word Negro is Spanish for black. The Spanish language comes from Latin, which has its origins in Classical Greek. The word Negro is derived from the Greek root word necro, meaning dead. It was a reference to the state of mind for millions of Africans. Politicians thrive and live on the fact that folk are negro as opposed to self determined individuals with the ability to reason and problem solve, thus ensuring their hold in politics. But what they fail to understand that if they truly want to deal with the economic plight of African Americans, they need to face the fact that economic improvement cannot be accomplished within the context of mass incarceration and the environment of the criminal justice arena that foster incessant Jim Crow-like practices. For the same dynamic that led to Jim Crow after the Civil war and emancipation proclamation has led to the present day mass incarceration of African Americans.Read more…